LOL. Don't think it Would have been a much better race if they stripped out all the creature comforts, but for a road car, still impressive numbers.

Love all the nay sayers on the electric car front saying the sales are not there, Failed idea, Too expensive, and so on. Too many on the financial side So out of touch with what the real potentials of what the technology will most definitely bring. Most only willing to take risks with other folks money. Many of the same arguments that came in when the horseless carriage came on the scene, and folks like Henry Ford needed to help build the industries entire support infrastructure. As soon as Musk manages a major break though with his in house battery construction with regards to performance/ cost reductions, it will be his only to use and pressure the market at a whole new level. Priceless!

The use of lithium batteries now in place of NIMH is also a factor if the gigaplant can lower the price of lithium then hybrid cars also, become more economically viable. If hybrid cars could be produced at or really close to ICE cars without incentives then the gloves are really off? I guess what I am saying from an economic standpoint is that we here on ES often forget that there are already ???????? hybrid cars being sold and produced and if the components for these cars become more viable then the other ICE counterparts this too will have a significant effect on the auto industry for sure.

if he can get the cost down in the $160/kWh range with the improved chemistries i think they are secretly developing with panasonic there is no reason he could not make a smaller vehicle with less range but still useful to a larger and larger group of consumers, especially in china where i can see the guvment going balls to the walls to support the build out of electric charging networks. they just added 17 cents to the fuel tax for capital to build out the charging network. that is a large market imo. i can see how the market here will expand over time if they can force the guvment to allow less weight to carry all the massive bumpers and stuff. i think getting the weight back down into the 700kg range will make a big difference in range and total expense and there are a lotta city bound commuters who need something small enuff to fit in special spots throughout all neighborhoods reserved for them to park and make charge ubiquitous throughout the metro areas.

California Governor Jerry Brown, a self-proclaimed crusader against climate change and a major backer of electric cars, signed a bundle of bills this weekend aimed at tipping the scales further in favor of zero-emission vehicles.

The main piece of legislation, called the Charge Ahead California Initiative, sets a target of putting at least a million zero-emission or near-zero-emission vehicles on the state’s roads by 2023.

To get there, the initiative asks that the state Air Resources Board devise a financial plan that would make it easier for low-income drivers to buy electric cars by extending extra credits to them so they can more easily participate in the state’s clean-vehicle rebate program.

The bill also offers more assistance to car-sharing programs and aims to install more electric-vehicle charging stations in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

“With this bill, California is driving towards a clean-air future that benefits everyone, not just the wealthy,” State Senator Kevin de León (D – Los Angeles), the initiative’s sponsor, said in a statement.

Brown also signed separate legislation Sunday increasing the number of plug-in vehicles allowed to use carpool lanes, regardless of how many occupants they carry, to 70,000 from 55,000.

California, home of Tesla Motors TSLA -0.81% , already accounts for about 40% of all electric cars sold in the country. At nearly 33 million cars and trucks, it also has more registered vehicles than any other state.

A new techno-economic analysis by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and MIT has found that economies of scale for manufacturing current Li-ion batteries for light-duty EV applications (in this case, prismatic pouch NMC333-G batteries and packs) are reached quickly at around 200-300 MWh annual production. Increased volume beyond that does little to reduce unit costs, except potentially indirectly through factors such as experience, learning, and innovation, they determined.

“That’s comparable to the amount of batteries produced for the Nissan Leaf or the Chevy Volt last year,” said CMU’s Dr. Jeremy Michalek, the corresponding author of a paper on the research published in the Journal of Power Sources. “Past this point, higher volume alone won’t do much to cut cost. Battery cost is the single largest economic barrier for mainstream adoption of electric vehicles, and large factories alone aren’t likely to solve the battery cost problem....” more

That's true of anything. Making an infinite number of steel bolts does not reduce the unit cost to zero.

If Tesla someone can make batteries cheaper than current market average at 200MWh/yr then it doesn't matter if they produce 200 or 200,000MWh. It would be different if the article reported that it was impossible ever produce batteries at an acceptable cost because they are expensive at low volumes and don't get any cheaper at high volume.

When I researched last year, sources indicated that $500/kWh was the point where an EV would be price-comparable (lifetime cost) with an ICE car (at then fuel prices).

once you add some capacity gains in there and some other little gains it would make a big difference.
IE what would a Zero battery cost if was 14s instead of 28s the BMS would be half as many items and the voltage would be lower with less dangers with isolation issues and things like the corrosion caused buy electrolysis and what not.

All IM saying is when they make their own battery they can find a way to make things more cost effective rather then repurposing laptop batteries to make a EV pack.

Not the ones that take you to 3-5x energy density improvements. The current lithium ion cell concepts will be replaced soon enough with whatever the next generation of electrical potential energy storage happens to be.

Each carcinogen vapor exposure includes a dice roll for cancer.

Each mutagen vapor exposure includes a dice roll for reproductive genetic defects in your children.

Each engine start sprays them into a shared atmosphere which includes beings not offered an opportunity to consent accepting these cancer experiences and defective genetics life experiences.

Every post is a free gift to the collective of minds composing the living bleeding edge of LEV development on our spaceship.

The problem with folks looking for the silver bullet of 3 - 5x energy density, is that they often ignore a host of other significant improvements that will work together to help paint the way to the improvements you speak of. At least within the same general technology. Agree when finding a completely new technology, all bets are off. They are few and far between unfortunately.

Forbes contributor Neil Winton reports that Daimler raked in $780 million in profits. It was a huge surprise because earlier this year, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said they could possibly expand their partnership with Tesla Motors further. Currently, Tesla provides the batteries and electric motors for the Smart ForTwo electric car and the Mercedes B-class electric.

Daimler also said that the sale of its Tesla stake does not mean that the two companies will cease working together.

Tesla and BMW execs meet

Tesla announced earlier this year that it was opening up its patents, allowing competitors to use them in an attempt to move the electric vehicle market along faster. Then over the summer, executives with BMW reportedly met with Tesla executives to talk about standardizing an electric car charging network—something that is sorely needed.

Arndt Ellinghorst, an analyst with International Strategy and Investment, told Winton that while he didn’t think it was necessary for Daimler to retain its stake in Tesla for the two companies to work together, he has seen signs that the ties may be loosening. He also said that Tesla might be more interested in working with BMW because the German automaker has an interesting carbon fiber technology that Tesla would find useful.

BMW, Tesla a match made in electric car heaven?

At this point we can’t be positive that BMW did really buy Daimler’s stake in Tesla Motors, so all of this is entirely speculation. However, it is a partnership that makes sense. If Tesla and BMW can combine its battery pack and electric drive train with BMW”s carbon fiber reinforced plastic, then both companies could come out swinging with electric cars that not only have class but are also much less expensive to make.

BMW’s electric cars are often compared with Tesla’s Model S, and there’s no denying that the two companies would make an unbeatable team if they united in the fight to bring electric cars to the masses, especially if Tesla succeeds in bringing down the cost of its battery packs by building its gigafactory.

New battery is ‘killer app’ for electric cars.... Independent experts in the US recently confirmed prototype cells in the battery developed by Dr Hu and Prof Sadoway can store more than twice as much energy as conventional cells.

The main difference between their battery and existing ones is that it has an ultra-thin metal anode with higher energy density than the graphite and silicon anodes in current batteries, and uses safer electrolyte material.

Dr Hu founded a company called SolidEnergy in 2012, just outside Boston, to commercialise the technology and hopes the battery will be in production for consumer electronics in the first half of 2016 and in electric cars by the second half of that year.....

....To speed up the process of getting the device to market, SolidEnergy only plans to make the core battery materials for larger manufacturers....
Tesla is hoping to bring down battery costs at the “gigafactory” battery plant it is building in Nevada. But most of the cost reductions are expected to come from economies of scale rather than the technological advances promised by batteries such as the one Dr Hu and Prof Sadoway are developing.

Tesla mainly wants higher energy density and lower cost, existing power and cycle life are ok. If anyone develops a develops a new cell Technology with substantially better energy and/or lower costs, I bet Tesla will be in.

they will not use current technology. elon hired the phD from the lab of that professor who gave the lecture on lipo chemistry that mitch pulled back up recently. i doubt if they ever talk about the specifics of the chemsitry they use, just tesla and maybe panasonic will know what the secret sauce is they use to keep the parasitic reactions to a minimum.

panasonic has the factory and production knowledge and are willing to invest in the capital equipment in exchange for access to the products. that is how i view the partnership.